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Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops

coindesk.com

11–20 of 238 posts

Re: Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops

#12

This is just a lie. Coindesk is the worst media in the world. They can't calculate correct price of mining because it's more complex and enerrgy costs are different in so many regions and inside the electiric producers etc. !

It’s not a lie, nor a damn lie. It’s statistics!

Re: Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops

#13

> When miners can't cover costs, they sell bitcoin to fund operations Surely they should stop producing until its profitable again, or am I missing something?

If everyone stopped mining transactions couldn't go through anymore and the value of bitcoin would drop. If you're heavily invested in bitcoin that's bad. Also miners try to squeeze in their preferred transactions which they can't do when they're not mining. Finally the costs dont drop to zero when you turn the miners off, so the loss from mining might be less than the loss when not mining.

Re: Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops

#14
post #7

The headline is dramatic but this is literally how bitcoin is designed to work. Miners leave, difficulty drops, costs go down, mining becomes profitable again. The interesting part isn’t the loss per coin, it’s how long the lag between unprofitable mining and difficulty adjustment keeps forced selling pressure on the market.

This only works when the difficult drop rates are below miner leaving rates.

Which in normal times, are something taken for granted, but once it does happen, the edge case collapse the entire system.

edit: the earlier language is not exact, the scenario is an exponential drop of value that results in exponential drop in miner willing to mine until this discrepancy can be resolved. i.e. the system is not protected against extreme volatility (e.g. -99% over a block cycle)

Re: Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops

#15
post #3

Is there a SQQQ for BTC?

You can take stable-coins, borrow bitcoin against them and sell them. (Fully or over-collateralized). Then buy back bitcoin if/when it drops.

If you’re wrong, you lose your stable-coins.

Let us know how it goes :)

Re: Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops

#16
post #3

Is there a SQQQ for BTC?

SMST (Defiance Daily Target 2x Short MSTR ETF) could be a rough equivalent.

As the other poster mentioned though, many miners won't be using oil-based energy sources, so it does make one wonder about cause and effect. Maybe a dip in BTC would've done it regardless of oil?

Re: Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops

#17

> When miners can't cover costs, they sell bitcoin to fund operations Surely they should stop producing until its profitable again, or am I missing something?

If you bought a bunch of hardware to mine bitcoins, then not using that hardware represents a 100% loss of value. You may lose money producing, but you would lose even more money not producing.

Re: Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops

#18
post #7

The headline is dramatic but this is literally how bitcoin is designed to work. Miners leave, difficulty drops, costs go down, mining becomes profitable again. The interesting part isn’t the loss per coin, it’s how long the lag between unprofitable mining and difficulty adjustment keeps forced selling pressure on the market.

This only works when the difficult drop rates are below miner leaving rates. Which in normal times, are something taken for granted, but once it does happen, the edge case collapse the entire system. edit: the earlier language is not exact, the scenario is an exponential drop of value that results in exponential drop in miner willing to mine until this discrepancy can be resolved. i.e. the system is not protected aga…

I don't think you know what you're talking about. If the difficulty lowers at a lower rate than miners leaving then the difficulty rate will stop dropping.

Re: Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops

#19
post #7

The headline is dramatic but this is literally how bitcoin is designed to work. Miners leave, difficulty drops, costs go down, mining becomes profitable again. The interesting part isn’t the loss per coin, it’s how long the lag between unprofitable mining and difficulty adjustment keeps forced selling pressure on the market.

This only works when the difficult drop rates are below miner leaving rates. Which in normal times, are something taken for granted, but once it does happen, the edge case collapse the entire system. edit: the earlier language is not exact, the scenario is an exponential drop of value that results in exponential drop in miner willing to mine until this discrepancy can be resolved. i.e. the system is not protected aga…

Yup

The problem with BTC going down is that it's a double whammy of not only BTC going down but also the cost of its shovels going up

Before: BTC pays $100k but a shovel costs $300

Now: BTC pays $70k but a shovel costs $$??

Bitcoin asked the right questions but came back with the wrong answers

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